Phishing
//ˈfɪʃɪŋ// noun, verb
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The malicious act of keeping a false website or sending a false e-mail with the intent of masquerading as a trustworthy entity in order to acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details. uncountable
"Holonym: social engineering"
- 2 The act of circumventing security with an alias. uncountable
Verb
- 1 present participle and gerund of phish form-of, gerund, participle, present
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Some attacks are focused on phishing, looking to steal user IDs and passwords. Others involve installing malware (malicious coding) designed to steal data or to access financial accounts and steal money."
Etymology
Respelling of fishing (“trying to find”). In Usenet newsgroups, cracker and pirate groups used variant spellings of phish and warez (i.e. wares) to evade scans and filters by mainstream servers policing the ARPAnet/Internet. Compare other respelling slang like phat and phreak.
Related phrases
More for "phishing"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.